


The Wildling and the Knight

by jeeno2



Series: Five Things [4]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Awkwardness, F/M, Flirting, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Humor, Kissing, Nudity, Skinny Dipping, Slow Build, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-30
Packaged: 2018-06-09 10:22:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6902023
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeeno2/pseuds/jeeno2
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Or, five times Tormund Giantsbane tries to woo the Lady Brienne and the one time it works.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wrong Room

**Author's Note:**

> Because I've fallen down the T/B rabbit hole. ;) 
> 
> These six ficlets were originally written and posted on tumblr separately in response to individual prompts from ourfuriosa and anidlebrain. Each one can be read on its own but together they form a loose little story.
> 
> The first one was written for ourfuriosa, who prompted: "Tormund x Brienne -- 'Is there a reason you're naked in my bed?"

“ _Oh!_ ”

The exclamation is on Brienne’s lips and out of her mouth before she can stop herself.  

Not that anyone would likely fault her for being a little rude under the circumstances.

On reflex, she quickly turns on her heels so that she’s staring at the door to the outside, rather than at the naked man who’s lying with his arms outstretched on her narrow cot.

“’ello, Brienne,” the man they call Tormund says from behind her.  The one who'd stared at her so unabashedly when she arrived at Castle Black with Lady Sansa and Pod. The one who'd leered at her over and around his bread at dinner. She thinks she can hear a smile in the man's words now. Of course, she doesn’t dare risk turning around again for visual confirmation of it.

“Hello,” she says back, stupidly.  Because she has no bloody idea what else to say.  Her face has grown hot – uncomfortably so in fact, though the night air outside is as frigid as ever.

She shifts her weight from foot to foot as she chooses her next words.  “Ser...”

The man scoffs, cutting off her next words.  “Tormund,” he corrects her.  “There’s no _ser_ in here with us.”

Brienne nods.  “Tormund,” she says.  “Can I just… ask you one thing?”

He shifts noisily on the narrow cot behind her.  “Aye.”

Brienne coughs, clearing her throat.  She feels as though she might burst into flames at any moment.  “Is there a reason you’re… naked?  In my bed?”

Tormund laughs.  Not the polite chuckle Brienne’s grown accustomed to in the company of lords and ladies.  No; Tormund’s laugh is a loud, braying thing.  Something that announces his presence in her chamber even more brashly than does his current complete state of undress. 

“Well, Brienne,” he says, once his laughter subsides enough to allow speech.  “Lord Snow assigned some of us to new rooms when the lot of you showed up.  Ended supper a bit in me cups to be honest, and I couldn’t rightly remember where Lord Snow’d moved me.  And, so -- guess I thought this bed was mine." He laughs again.  ‘Til you showed up two minutes ago that is.”  

Brienne can hear the harsh creaking of bedsprings from behind her that can only mean Tormund is getting up.  This suspicion is confirmed when she hears his padding footsteps coming towards her from across the room.  In a panic, Brienne is just about to tell him that he need not get up, she’ll just ask Lord Snow to reassign her to different quarters, when Tormund suddenly stands in front of her, all six foot three inches of him, naked as he likely was the day of his birth.

She’s never seen anything like this man before in her life.  To her amazement and horror, she finds she cannot look away.

“See you later, Brienne,” he tells her, winking.  He reaches out and claps her on the shoulder.  He holds her gaze, and he keeps his hand on her person longer than is strictly necessary.  She can feel the improbable heat of it all the way down through her thick woolen layers.

And without another word, the man they call Tormund pulls a heavy cloak off a peg near the door, wraps it around his body, and is gone.

It takes Brienne a very long time to fall asleep that night as she wonders what, exactly, happened here tonight.


	2. Pancakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written for anidlebrain on tumblr, who wanted a ficlet where Tormund tries to woo Brienne with pancakes. This is an edited and expanded version.

The unmistakable, delicious aroma of frying dough mixed together with sweet tree-sugar syrup greets Brienne when she enters Castle Black’s mess hall at sunrise.

It is a most welcome, if completely unexpected surprise.  Last night’s tour of the wooded copse just north of the Wall had been as grueling as it had been fruitless.  She hadn’t realized just how hungry she’d been before arriving, but now that she’s here her mouth waters at the thought of taking a bite of whatever it is that’s making that smell.   

The moment Brienne sits down heavily at the mess hall’s long table a man – the great big red-headed wildling; Tormund, the man who she seems to run into at every turn – pokes his head out from the kitchen in back.  He’s got on a tiny apron clearly intended for a person of much smaller stature and is covered from the ends of his wild red hair to the tips of his toes in what appears to be a fine layer of flour.

Brienne has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing at the sight of him.

For his part, when Tormund sees Brienne the same dazed expression he wore when she arrived at the Wall with Lady Sansa and Pod a fortnight ago blooms on his face.  She doesn’t know what to do with either of them, really – either the dazed look or the man who wears it.  They both confound her, and Brienne is not one to be confounded. 

Tormund walks over to her, then, setting a large platter stacked high with pan-fried cakes in front of her.  “I’ve been waiting for you.  Eat.”  His voice brooks no opposition.  “A long night’s raidin’ and ridin’ makes a person hungry.  Knew you’d gone out with those idiot crows last night and figured you’d be right hungry when you got back, so…. here.”  He nods, indicating the platter.  “Eat.”

It seems an age at least since Brienne has had opportunity to eat until her belly was well and truly full.  Even during her relatively sheltered, carefree childhood she’d been fed like a girl – which meant her meals were usually insufficient for someone her size.  But here, in this desolate place at the end of the world, and thanks to this wild and confounding man, she eats her fill.  He watches her as she dips the indescribably delicious cakes, one after the other, into the sweet syrup, before popping them into her mouth.  Not with the derision she’s used to seeing from men, but with a strange, unfamiliar intensity that causes her cheeks to grow very warm and which forces her to look away.

“Won’t Lord Commander Snow be cross with you?” she eventually asks.  Needing to say _something_ to this man, and yet knowing that this is not the thing that really needs saying. “Using up all these provisions on one person?”

Tormund scoffs and waves his hand dismissively.

“Don’t care if he is cross,” he says bluntly.  “I bend the knee to no man.  Least of all to him.”  He coughs into his hand and continues, his voice very soft.  "'sides, I figure they owe people like you and me. They'd all be dead, or worse, without us." 

Brienne glances up at him again.  He’s still watching her.  As she finishes her breakfast, Tormund’s gaze never wavers, and she can feel it upon her as acutely as any physical touch.  


	3. Night Swimming

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally written and posted on tumblr for ourfuriosa, who prompted -- "I can't believe I let you talk me into this." I've expanded on the original drabble before posting it here.

“Swim with me.”

As Brienne stands by the wintry pool, stunned, Tormund sits down on a nearby rock and folds his arms across his broad chest.  Just as casually as if he’d proposed they take an afternoon stroll by a lake at mid-summer.

“Well?” he asks, waiting for an answer.  But Brienne is still too shocked to speak. And so instead of answering she continues to stare at him silently, slack-jawed and incredulous. 

After a long pause he sighs, stands up, and begins to undress, muttering things to himself Brienne cannot quite make out.  

It’s when he lifts his rough-hewn tunic over his head and tosses it to the ground beside him that she finally finds her voice. “You… cannot be serious,” she blurts out.

Tormund stares at her a long moment before bursting out into raucous laughter. “Aye, I am,” he says.  “’s the only way to get properly clean up here, north of the Wall, ye see.  Ain’ no fancy tubs, nor maids to fill ‘em, up here.”  He continues to disrobe as he talks, removing his breeches, his underthings.  When he’s finished the job he stands upright, completely unashamed and apparently unbothered by the frigid temperatures.  Brienne wills herself to keep her eyes fixed firmly on his face. 

And without another word, Tormund Giantsbane dives headfirst into the water with an effortless grace that surprises her.  

“Join me!” he shouts when he resurfaces, his sodden red hair a mess of tangles. “It’s a hot spring, Brienne.  You’ll be warmer than ye’ve ever been.  And ye deserve it.  Ye’ve been ridin’ harder than any of ‘em since ye got here.”  He looks at her another long moment in silence before winking salaciously.  Waggles his eyebrows.  “An’ if yer worried – I promise I won’t bite.”  He winks at her again.  “Not unless you want me to, mind.”

Brienne’s face flushes crimson at the implication of his words.  And she goes even redder when she realizes, with a shock, that she’s actually considering it.  Bathing, that is.  Not the lewd _other_ things he’s suggesting.  This would hardly be the first time she’s been unclothed in the presence of a man.  And he’s right: the two of them have been riding hard the past several weeks.  In fact, they’ve taken more patrols than anyone actually _on_ the Night’s Watch.

And she’s exhausted.  A long, relaxing soak in a hot spring would be wonderful.  Even if it is with a man who confuses her more than any man she’s known since…

Well.  More than any man she’s known in some time. 

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Brienne mutters – to herself, or to Tormund; she can’t be sure which – as she hurriedly disrobes besides the lake.  She doesn’t turn around to see whether he’s watching her but she can feel his eyes on her all the same.  She wonders, fleetingly, if he’s repulsed by her as other men have been – all long muscles and gangly limbs where there should be smooth lines and delicate curves.

When she’s finished, and her clothing lies in a pile on the ground, she hurries to the lake to minimize the frosty air’s harsh bite.  In the process, and without intending to, she meets Tormund’s eye.

If he is disgusted by what he sees before him he shows no sign of it. 

On the contrary, in fact. 

“Well, fuck me bloody,” he mutters under his breath, never taking his eyes off of her.

Brienne closes her eyes as she approaches the water, doing her best to ignore the strange, slightly uncomfortable wash of butterflies that have suddenly taken root in her stomach.  She takes a deep, steadying breath.

And she jumps.


	4. Flesh Wound

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written and posted on tumblr for ourfuriosa, who prompted: "I almost lost you."

Their small band is set upon by a dozen Bolton-loyal northerners less than twenty miles south of the Wall.

The two Night’s Watchmen accompanying them on this foolish journey to Riverrun – a scared, green boy still unable to grow a full beard, and an elderly man who never speaks unless shouted at – are of little help in the ensuing fray.   But with Tormund beside her they make quick work of them all the same.  In minutes, the wildling proves himself every bit the warrior he’s repeatedly claimed to be, dispatching men half again as well-armed as he is as easily as one might a training dummy.

When it’s over, and the traitors to House Stark lay bleeding and dying at their feet, Tormund makes a horrible noise in the back of his throat before spitting directly on the crumpled man lying nearest him.

When he’s finished, he turns his eyes to her.  

“You,” he says.  Just one simple word, but his voice is raw – with residual fear, perhaps; or perhaps it’s just the exhaustion of the day’s events finally catching up to him.

In either case Brienne does not know how to respond.

“You,” she says back to him, feeling every bit the stupid girl she truly is beneath her armor.

“No,” he says, correcting her with a fervor that confuses her further.   He shakes his head.  “Not me.   _You_. Ye’re hurt, Brienne.  Look at yer arm.”

At his words she notices, for the first time, the hot sharp spike of stabbing pain lancing straight through her left forearm.  She does as he bids and looks down at herself, gasping at the angry red smile of a gash decorating the one spot of her upper body not covered in mail.

“It’ll heal,” he says abruptly.  “I’ve seen worse.”

She nods.  “So have I.”  And she has.  She’s seen far worse.  “It’s just a flesh wound.”

Tormund shakes his head again, clearly agitated. “That may be, but…” He trails off, and directs his vision to a spot directly over Brienne’s shoulder.  His face goes suddenly expressionless.  “Didn’t know it was a flesh wound at first, when I saw that Bolton fucker cut you.  For a second, thought I’d lost ye.”

Brienne continues to stare at him, to look at him as he continues to look at an invisible spot of nothing just beyond her.  

“Ye’re incredible with a sword, Brienne,” he eventually continues, his voice now raw with what Brienne understands, in a flash, is emotion.  He looks her right in the eye.  “I’ve never seen your equal, to tell the truth.  Not likely I’ll see something quite like you ever again.”

Slowly – as though they’re both trapped inside some kind of bizarre fever dream – Tormund steps forward.  He reaches out tentatively and, with a surprisingly gentle hand, caresses her cheek.  His touch leaves an unexpected trail of gooseflesh along her arms that distracts her completely from her wound.

“We make a hell of a team, you and me,” he says, beaming.

He looks so pleased – so genuinely happy to be here with her, touching her; so relieved that she’ll be all right – that she cannot help but smile back.


	5. Why?

When Tormund kisses her for the first time – half a hundred miles north of Winterfell, the brilliant stars in the frigid sky above them the only witnesses – it takes Brienne so by surprise that she freezes, eyes wide, too shocked to move or speak or even breathe.

He notices her reaction immediately. 

(Of course he does.  Does he miss nothing?)

“What?” he asks abruptly.  But then everything about the man who just kissed her is abrupt.  The way he eats, his manner of fighting.  His laughter.  The way he looks at her, has _always_ looked at her, from across a crowded mess hall or from the sleeping furs next to hers, his eyes steely pools of heat and fire and wanting.

It’s that wanting – that raw, untempered desire she can no longer pretend not to see – that’s the problem.  Because she doesn’t understand it.  Brienne may be young, but she’s no fool, and she’s certainly no stranger to heartbreak.  She knows all too well she has none of the attributes men desire in a woman.  She is neither subservient nor meek.  And she knows, as well as she knows her own face, that she is no beauty.

Tormund is strong, and as immutable as the mountains that ring the North.  He is abrasive, and rash, and impossibly funny.  Perhaps most importantly, Tormund may the bravest, most loyal man she’s ever known.  She knows enough about the culture north of the Wall to know that those traits could win him any woman he desired.  Or even help him steal one should he be so inclined.

His kissing her like this – his _wanting_ her like this – defies logic. 

But she says none of this to him.

“Why?” she asks instead, answering his question with one of her own.  Her voice cracks awkwardly on the single word, belying her nerves.  She hates herself for being so weak at the one time in her life she needs so desperately to be strong.

He looks at her incredulously.

“Surely ye must know, Brienne,” he says.  His voice is low and rough, and the sound of it sends an unexpected bolt of heat straight through her.

“I don’t,” she says, voice shaking.

He shakes his head.  “Then I’ll show ye.”

Brienne hadn’t known kissing could be like this.  Not just mouths and tongues coming together in a messy tangle but something else.  Something indescribably _more_.  His beard is rough against her skin as he tastes her with a gentleness she never would have imagined.  The unexpected juxtaposition of rough and tenderness loosens her hands from their tight fists, and the barest touch of the tip of his tongue to her lips is the only encouragement she needs to part them.

“Do ye understand now?” he murmurs into her ear.  When she doesn’t reply he begins to move, pressing a line of impossibly gentle, reverent, open-mouthed kisses down the column of her neck, to her shoulder, along her clavicle.

She doesn’t.  But what he’s doing feels so good.  So impossibly _good_. 

She doesn't want him to stop. She does not ask him to. 

She tries to wall off her heart instead, hoping it will help ease the sting of rejection when it comes. 


	6. I Won't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written and posted on tumblr for ourfuriosa from the following prompt: "You did all of this for me?" Thank you for joining me on this cracky little journey, everyone! We may never see this ship come to fruition in canon but there'll always be fanfic (I hope?). xx

“I won’t be stolen.”

Brienne’s words cut through the stillness of the morning like a knife.  She's hardly aware she's said them before they’re out of her mouth, though they’re no less true for that.

But it's done.  And now he’s heard what's been on her mind these past weeks.  There’s no taking it back.

For his part, Tormund merely sits up and blinks at her.  He wears the look he always wears when deep in thought.  But he does not look surprised.  

“Aye,” he says, nodding slowly.  “Wouldn’t dream of stealing ye, to tell the truth.”  He runs a hand through his wild, unkempt beard.  Her eyes follow the simple gesture that, over the weeks and months they’ve been riding and fighting together, has somehow become synonymous with the man himself. A thoughtful, deliberate movement that stands in stark contrast with the raging tempest that swirls perennially inside him.  

She nods.  “Good.”

He laughs.  “’sides, it’s not like I’d be able to _do_ it.  Steal you, I mean.  Even if I wanted to.”  He kisses her soundly on the forehead.  The affectionate gesture makes her blush despite their activities of the very recent past.  “You outweigh me by half a stone, yeah?  More importantly, if I so much as tried it you’d have me balls off my body and ‘round your neck quicker’n I can blink.”

She smiles.  “That’s true,” she admits.

He smiles back at her.

That business sorted, they lie down together in his sleeping furs.   _Their_ sleeping furs, now.  She curls her long body around his in a way that’s both frighteningly new to them and yet like something they’ve been doing all their lives.  Brienne wraps her arms tightly around his broad chest, and he responds by burrowing back into her like this is something they have, in fact, been doing together since time began.

How have they arrived here, of all places?  Brienne still isn’t certain she understands.  But she finds she doesn’t much care.  She kisses his neck and he sighs, kissing her forearm.

After a long pause:  “I won’t marry you,” he says simply.

His words do not surprise her.  Do wildlings _ever_ marry?  Brienne does not know.  Given what she does know of his people she doubts it.

She's surprised by how little his blunt admission bothers her.

“I know,” she says.  

He turns in her arms to look at her.  Despite the bluntness of his words his face is a mask of concern.  It melts her heart.

“Does that upset ye?” He kisses her shoulder.  “I know ye southern folk do things differently. I know southern ladies expect their men to marry them, and such.”

Brienne bites her lip a moment and looks past his shoulder, thinking.  Yes, she was raised to believe that marrying a good, important man was her life’s primary goal.  But then all the good, important men introduced to her began to pass her over, one by one.  As she’s travelled and seen the world in service first to Lord Renly and now to Lady Stark, she’s seen that fancy words in front of a Septon and a girl’s family are little more than meaningless wind.  Cruel men keep on with their cruelty regardless of marriage vows.  Cheating men do not leave off with their cheating because of matrimony, nor do cowardly men do change their ways.

She does not answer his question.

“Will you be true to me?” she asks instead, already knowing what he will tell her.

“Aye,” he says, honestly.  “Always.”

“Treat me well?”

He closes his eyes. “I’ve never met another woman like ye, Brienne.  Never will again.”  He opens them.  “Of course I’ll treat ye well.  I’ll share my meat with ye and my sleeping furs.  My heart too.  For as long as I have ‘em to share.”  He smiles at her.  “If ye’ll have ‘em.”

She pulls him to her in a tight embrace.

“You’ll do all this for me?” she asks, her voice a rough whisper.

He nods against her shoulder.  “Aye, Brienne.”

It’s enough.


End file.
